Tahiti is what always represented the pacific Islands to me. This is where Capt. Cook and his motley crew of sailors first encountered the beautiful and free loving Tahitian women. I am sure things have changed since then but I really don’t’ know yet as we have stopped at out of the way anchorages on the way to Papeete. The first one was Aiurua on the west coast. Last night was Havae pass on the south coast and today will be Maraa on the southwest coast. Papeete is on the northwest coast. In all of these anchorages we are the only boat. They all have a beautiful backdrop of lush green mountains and seas breaking on the reef to seaward, putting you to sleep at night. It is really a beautiful Island.

This coming week Mike and Marnie leave for Denver on Tuesday and will be gone for 10 days. So I will be sailing alone in Tahiti for 10 days (someone has to do it). We will be coming into Papeete on Monday. So I will look forward to updating you on Papeete and sailing alone in Tahiti.

Love Gary

Happy Birthday to my nieces Carmen and Kelsey this week, July 26 and July 30th,respectively!
We spent the last week in Rangiroa. A very relaxing place. As I mentioned, crystal clear water. Mike and I got in the water to clean the hull. Lot’s of laying in the sun too. Just as I was about to step back into the water one day to cool off there was a black tip reef shark in my spot by the back step of the boat, just hangin’ out. I must say we have certainly seen our share of sharks during our journey in the Pacific Ocean.
Mike and Gary is a few drift dives here. The current in the channels is quite strong so this brings with it many fish. They say over 100 shark on their first dive and several larger sharks and many rays on their second dive. Mike did a third dive but did not see all the sharks as before. Mike has a video of both their dives and it is astounding. Mike and I spent the night at the Kia Oa Hotel on the island that has the huts over the water. What a nice place. We even had our own private infinity pool at our hut. I was actually land sick since it’s been so long since I was on land…..just a little dizzy. Gary found a nice little local restaurant where we had dinner one night. The French Chef has worked all over the world and the food was delicious. A nice treat on a small island.
We left Rangiroa on Wednesday morning for Tahiti. We had a 30 hour sail that started out quite calm but turned rather rough during the night. It’s one of those times that I watch the storm clouds form like monsters all around us and the seas kick up, the wind picks up and we are just getting beat up. Shellette is quite the boat and she handles quite well in those conditions. It’s that crazy little song that automatically comes together in my head in such conditions….”The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If not for he courage of the fierless crew…….blah, blah..You know how it goes. It’s just always there in my head during a storm.
Anyway, here we sit in a quiet little lagoon on the southern side of Tahiti. We are the only boat here right now. There are a few houses on the shore but no roads to town, only accessible by boat. We took the 30 minute dinghy ride to the closest village and was several beautiful waterfalls. Tahiti is a larger island than we have been before so we will make our way around it over the next few weeks. We had planned to stay in the Tuamoto (atolls) Island longer but needed to get to Tahiti to get the sail drive repaired. Mike and are will be back in Denver next week for business. I am going to take a trip back to Philly/NJ for the weekend too…..hoping to catch up with some friends and family. Hopefully I will be able to download and update our picture gallery while I’m back in the states too.
All for now. Life is Good! Love to all….

Well we made it to Rangiroa Atoll without anything else going wrong. What a beautiful place this is. It is totally different than the Marquesas Islands which are very Mountainous. These are coral atolls, no hills, highest point 35’. It is hard to describe an Atoll but basically it is an Island with the center of the Island a lake of sea water, and the outer part of the Island is land 200’ wide going all the way around. So it is sort of like a donut. See formation of Atoll below

Mike and I have done two dives since we got here and both were really great. The first one we saw 100’s of sharks, 4-6 footers. They were not more than 100 ft from us and the visibility was fantastic. Than we drift dived through the pass hitting speeds of 8 mph at 60 ft. and finally ended up swimming with 6 Manta Rays.

The next day we went on another dive and saw BIG sharks, Silver tips 8-12 ft in length. Maybe about 5 of them within 30 ft. Then we came upon a Manta cleaning station. There are cleaning stations for fish all over the ocean near reefs. It is a place where fish swim up and little fish or scrimp clean the parasites off of their gills. Well at this Manta cleaning station there were 3 very large Mantas getting cleaned and we were able to watch for 15 minutes.

Another day I took a bike ride from our anchorage to the little town 6 miles away. On the way I passed a winery (well it is a French Island). So about 10:30 am I am tasting wines. The wines were pretty good but very expensive $40/ 750ml. I guess they think it is a novelty to buy I sland wine.

Other then that we are just taking it easy and trying to line up the parts for the saildrive so we can fix it ourselves or see if we can get it fixed in Tahiti under warranty.

So until next week, enjoy the summer and be safe.

Love Gary
www.realityinterrupted.com

We arrived in Rangiroa yesterday late afternoon. We had to change course due to the problems we encountered with our Starboard sail drive (a.k.a. boat transmission). This island is the second largest atoll in the world. It is 40 miles long an 17 miles wide at the widest point. The population is only 2,000. It is a flat island, unlike the Marquesas and quite beautiful. There are beautiful white sand beaches and turquoise water – my kind of water…the kind you can see thru! You know the pictures you see of the island hotels where they have those huts out on the water….the hotel here is just like that!
We are hoping to find out in the next few days about how/when we can get the boat fixed. It entails getting parts, warranties, etc. We may have to miss out on seeing more of the islands here and head straight for Tahiti for the repairs, as that is the main metropolis here. I know what you are thinking….those poor, poor slobs on Shellette will have to go to Tahiti for repairs, boo hoo! I know, I’m sorry but somebody has to take one for the team, right?! Anyways, that is it for now….just a brief update. I will let you know more about this island and our future plans as they unfold. Stay tuned. Life is good! Love to all….

Well, well, well here we are at sea again. We left on a Friday!! Old sea lore says “never leave on a Friday for a sea voyage”. Well we did and guess what?? We won’t do it again.

Let’s see, it started out OK, nice winds, blue sky, mild seas, only a 3 day 500 mile trip. Then the shit started happening. First the generator went on the fritz, but I was able to find a work around for that. Then one of our sail drives (engines) stopped working and we probably can not fix it until Tahiti. But, the problem is that you need all the power you can get to go into some of the passes to the atolls we are heading towards. Because you can have up to 8 knots of current in the passes (entrances). With coral heads sca ttered all around that you need to avoid.

So halve way to our first atoll we changed course and heading towards the biggest atoll Rangiroa, were the pass is easier and they have flights to Tahiti. It is an extra 100 miles and we should??? Be there on Monday. Oh yea, and the weather turned real bad, squalls (winds to 30 mph), rain and big seas.

Anyways, before we left Taiohae Bay on Nuku Hiva I was sitting on the boat @ anchor in the morning one day and saw all these Rays (5-10) swimming around the boat. Upon closer inspection I realized that were Manta Rays some with a wing span of 15 ft. So I put on my snorkel gear and went in the water. They were awesome!! One of them a big one, swam in a circle 5 times right in front of me with in 10 ft. WOW!!!!

Also while at Taiohae Bay we went ashore for Bastille Day to partake in the festivities.
Well we got ashore about 10am and missed the Parade. So we went into a big building/tent where all the locals were. They had live Polynesian music, (one guy on key board ), free food, slices of Baggett with stuff on them (very good) and lots of cake. Now I know why Polynesians tend to be large. By noon the party was over.

Well anyways back to leaving on Fridays the wind indicator just stopped working. Not a big deal, we just don’t know how hard the wind is blowing or from what direction.

We left Taiohae Bay for Ua Pou Island and spent a night at Hakaotu Bay and it was beautiful. We had it all to ourselves with cliffs surrounding us. I went on a dive off the20boat and saw some great coral, rock formations and a lot of fish.

Early the next morning we left on 3 day trip and yes it was Friday Morning!! So I hope not to much more happens and that we safely make it to Rangiroa. We did say we were sorry for leaving on a Friday to the sea gods and that we would not do it again.

So until next week, I am not sure what the title will be yet.
1 WE MADE IT
2 Adrift at Sea

Love Gary

The Marquesas Week2

Mike and Marnie did make it back on Monday so all is back to normal. All in all it has been a quiet week. We took a short trip to another bay on Nuku Hiva Island called Hakatea Bay and it was absolutely beautiful. We stayed two nights and one day took a 2.5 hr hike to a 2000’ high water fall. The country we hiked through was fabulous. High cannon walls with lush vegetation growing everywhere. Of course there was a pool of water at the base and we did go swimming in it. Well then, it was a 2.5 hr hike back and we were all getting blisters luckily we go barefoot most of the time.
&nbs p;
We are hanging around Taiohae Bay to be here or Tuesday as they celebrate Bastille Day, which is a French celebration. So we are interested in seeing how they celebrate this French holiday.

This weekend we pretty much hung around the boat and did maintenance projects (we did not have to wear shoes). At some point during the week we plan on leaving for the Tuamotu Atolls, which are in between the Marquesas and Tahiti. It will be a 500 mile 3 day trip. There are probably about 30 atolls so we will be staying about a month visiting different ones.

So until next week stay healthy and enjoy life.

Love Gary

We spent the last several days on the island of Nuku Hiva in Marquesas. Baie de Taiohae is a main harbor with a small town where we spent most of our time. We found this harbor to have lots of sea life. A few days ago we had a 5ft Hammerhead shark come right to the boat and swim around. He was the only one swimming for awhile after that! Then two days later we woke up to 8-10 Manarays swimming and feeding all around the boat. It was amazing. They hung around so long Gary jumped in with his snorkel gear on to get an up close look. Two of the rays swam right to him and appeared to be putting on a show turning and flipping every which way for him. After all of this, Mike wanted to clean the hull, which must be done quite often to keep the algae and barnacles from growing. It entails getting in the water and scrubbing the sides by hand. Well….being the Nervous Nellie that I am, I kept watch for sharks while Mike scrubbed. He no sooner finished and sat on the step to remove his fins when a very large “gray thing” appeared to have followed him. At my yelp, he lifted his feet out of the water and won’t be doing that again anytime soon!

We decided to stay anchored there because we wanted to see how the French celebrated Bastille Day, Polynesian style. We were told it was a big celebration so we were excited. To start, we missed the small parade that started at 7am and the speeches by the local politicians, of course in French. We ended up going to town around 10am and went into the large tent the locals had put up a few days before in preparation. Here they have live, local music, lots of flowers and greens decorated the tent as well. The women and girls all dressed in festive Polynesian garb with leis and wreaths of flowers on their heads. The men wore lots of large ivory necklaces, handmade of course. It appeared that the locals all bring homemade cakes and breads for all to eat. (There is no wonder you don’t see many thin Polynesians!) We helped ourselves to the treats and mostly just people watched and waited to see what was to come next. Slowly the crowd of a few hundred dwindled down, only to find out that was it! Celebration over. The few stores they have in town were closed for the holiday so there wasn’t much else to do. We passed a few boaters on their way to town only to tell them they missed out too. We were all disappointed but oh well…..we ended up making our own celebration on the boat and toasted the French with wine and played Ten Thousand (our favorite dice game introduced by Gary) until the wee hours. The next morning we rose to finish provisioning, said good bye to some friends and set sail for the island of Ua Pou, pronounced Wapoo.

Ua Pou is only 25 miles south of Huku Niva so it was a quick 4 hour sunny sail. We are anchored in a small (one boat) lagoon with lots of protection for the Pacific swells.
There is lots of vegetation, cliffs and mountain goats around us. Not much else here so we will be heading to the Tuamotu Atolls Islands. The definition of an Atoll is and island of coral that encircles a lagoon partially or completely subset in a special class of islands, the unique property of which is the presence of an organic reef – or a chain of volcanic islands. These 30 or so small islands are still part of French Polynesia. These islands differ from what we have seen so far as they are relatively flat without much vegetation and no mountains. Sailing is adventurous as you must keep watch for the many reefs and must enter at only high tide. Diving is supposed to be spectacular. We will set sail again Friday or so for the 3.5 day sail to the atolls. Life is Good…..Love to all…

Here we are back on the boat. While Mike and I returned to Colorado for a week to take care of some business and catch up with some family, Gary enjoyed sailing and touring a few more of the Marquesas Islands. He went to Ua Pou, Atuona, Tahuata and Nuku-Hiva. Mike and I flew to the island of Nuku Hiva where Gary was anchored. We had to take a 2 hr. taxi ride from the airport to Baie de Taiohae. It was a beautiful ride over the very mountainous terrain here. Lot’s of narrow roads and hairpin turns to get over the mountains here. There is lots of rain forest and vegetation. We sailed over to another bay only 5 miles from here on Tuesday called Baie de Taioa or Daniel and Antoinette’s Bay, after the friendly Marquisan couple who have lived there for over 60 years. There is not much there but a small bay, Daniel’s house/hut and about 12 houses/huts. There are no stores or electricity at all. The entire French Polynesia is so beautiful but I believe this bay itself is what they mean by Paradise! The harbor there is completely surrounded by lush, green mountains. So much so that we could not get internet but the full moon and stars make up for that. It is so much more beautiful than any postcard I have ever seen! We met up with some friends from London again, Mike and Devala. The five of us ventured on a 5 mile roundtrip hike to the third highest waterfall in the world. There were many ruined paepae and some tikis in the valley. Amazing to see these ancient ruins in the rain forest. Devala and I heard a baby crying in the middle of the forest and setoff to investigate. Low and behold we found a baby lying in a wheel barrow. The mother was not far off picking fruits. I guess it is take your baby to work day everyday here. Except for me, the group swam in the pond at the bottom of the waterfall and found a beautiful cave inside. (I chickened out after seeing too many ‘critters’ on land and in the water.)
The few people on this part of the island like to trade with the boaters as there is no other means to get things. Chocolate seems to be there number one item they like from the outside world. We are hanging on to what we have left for another island. Mike and Devala traded some wine for bananas, pomplemousse (French grapefruit) and some native deep fried banana treats which they happily shared with us. All of these items grow in abundance here. Gary was able to pick some very nice, potent chili peppers from a bush during our hike too. Today we are back at
Baie Taiohae to refuel and provision. We will head to the Atoll Islands sometime next week. The French celebrate Bastille Day July 17th, so we will stick around for that celebration before we take off for new islands. The Atolls are still in the French Polynesia but 500 miles further south, another 3.5 day sail. (can’t wait-not!) We were given permission to stay in French Polynesia until September 24th so we are taking our time to enjoy the islands! Life is Good! Love to All…..

The Marquesas
A Week Alone

For the first time in a long time ( a year) I went to church, to thank the forces to be for a great week and a safe one. Of course I did not understand anything and could not sing as it was all in French. But the Islanders singing was beautiful.

I left Fatu Hiva (Bay of Virgins) last Monday Or did they kick me out cause I tried to convert some of them? I can’t remember. Anyways the winds were great all week long blowing 20-25 knots which is a lot of wind, but it was behind me most of the way (pushing me). My first trip was about 40 miles (6 hours) to the Island of Tahuata to a little bay called Hanatefau. I had it all to myself and it was a very pretty bay. High hills all around with lots of vegetation and palm trees.

The next day I went to another bay on the same Island called Hanamoenoa Bay. There were 5 other boats and nothing else. It was rated as one of the most beautiful bays in Polynesia. It had a beautiful beach that I took a walk on. I also put on my dive gear and saw a lot of reef fish and beautiful coral right off the boat.

On Wednesday I left at 5 am for the Island called Ua Pou. It w as 70 miles away and it was going to take 10 hours. Again it was a great trip lots of wind, and of course as a sailor that is what we want. My first stop was Vaiehu Bay. Again I had it all to myself and it was really pretty and remote. High cliffs surrounding the bay.
The next morning I sailed up the coast to another bay called Hakehetau. There is a little settlement there so I walked around, bought some mangos and grapefruit right off the tree. Since there was not much else to do I set sail for Nuku Hiva Island, Taiohae Bay.This is the main town in the Marquesas with supplies and even someone to do laundry. This is also were I am going to pick up Mike and Marnie on Monday.

So on Friday I gathered all the laundry, dropped it off and came back to the boat. I cleaned a little, but pretty much took it easy. On Saturday I took the bike ashore and checked the town out. Found three small grocery stores to provision at and walked around a park with old Tiki statues. I Then came back to the boat cleaned some more. Had some wine at sunset (6 pm) made dinner (lamb chops), some more wine and watched a movie.

So until next week, you all enjoy the summer, your friends and family and be safe.
Love Gary

The Marquesas Islands
WE MADE IT, open sea voyage of 3000 miles, 18 days.

The last 4 days of our trip were uneventful. We stopped fishing after catching the 30 lb tuna as we had plenty of frozen fish. The winds blew very nice sometimes for short gusts hitting 30 knots, one of those times we had the spinnaker up, but we survived it. So overall we made great time.

The timing of the land fall could not have been planned better, even if we planned it. We were within 20 miles just before daybreak. So when the sun rose in the east the Islands rose from the sea in the west. It was absolutely beautiful. After being at sea for 18 days it was fantastic to see land again “even for me”.

Our first stop was the Island Hiva Oa, the town Atuona Latitude 9 48’ S, Long. 139 2’ W
We stopped here for two reasons 1) we could check into customs and immigration here and they have a airport. Mike had to fly back to Denver for business and Marnie went with. They will be back on July 6. We rented a car for a couple of days and drove around the Island. What a beautiful lush place. Mountain peaks (4000ft) all over the place. We stopped at a little farm enroute and bought a stalk of bananas right off the tree.

I am now by myself for the next week and will visit a number of Marquesas Islands. On Saturday20I sailed to Fatu Hiva lat. 10 28’S, long. 138 40’ W and stayed in the Hanavave Bay (Bay of Virgins). Today I am going ashore to see if it is true. What a beautiful bay. It is like the Fiords, but there are lush green mountains surrounding the bay.

Many of you know my daughter Nicole. Well if you remember 6 years ago she was on The TV show Fear Factor. She will once again be on TV. This time the season premier of LA Ink July 9 at 10pm eastern time. She received an awesome Tattoo from them, which you will see.

So until next week, when I will update you on the Bay of Virgins (reality or myth) and some of the other Marquesas Islands. As you can see I did get access to the internet but the two year schedule is on Mikes computer, so I will send next week.

Love Gary

Mike and I are heading back to French Polynesia today. We will arrive sometime Monday. We really enjoyed seeing our family members in Denver. I was able to download some pictures finally so hope you enjoy. I will begin updating the website once I return…Stay tuned. Love to all.